A Boston-area native and a graduate of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, I’ve been writing professionally since I landed a job as a correspondent for The Boston Globe in 2001. A year later I moved to Colorado, where I’ve held a variety of writing and editing positions: managing editor of Boulder Weekly; custom-publishing managing editor at New Hope Natural Media; regular contributor to 5280, Denver’s city magazine; and staff writer for Westword, Denver’s alternative newsweekly. Now, as a full-time freelance writer, I’ve written for a variety of publications nationwide, including Wired, Slate, Bloomberg Businessweek and Grantland. I am also co-author of The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny, to be published by Simon & Schuster on April 1, 2014.

My narrative nonfiction has earned accolades from the likes of the James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards, the Best American Sports Writing anthology, the Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism, the Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, the Magazine Awards of Western Publishing and the National Awards for Education Reporting. In 2009, I won both first and third place for feature writing in the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ annual AltWeekly Awards, with the judges calling my work an “Outstanding blend of strong reporting and fast-paced narrative writing.” My work appears in the compendium Best AltWeekly Writing 2009 & 2010.

I live in Denver, Colorado, with my wife, Emily, and our two children, Charlotte and Gabriel. According to the vagaries of the Internet, I am best known as an international expert on Swine Flu (I’m not) and one of the leading authorities on Casa Bonita, the Denver restaurant made famous by South Park (I may be). I’m represented by Sasha Raskin at The Agency Group.

Joel Warner is available for corporate events, private shows, milestone celebrations (birthday, anniversary), fundraisers, festivals, and more.